The Chronicle‘s editorial today is, “Tasers in responsible police hands are valuable law enforcement tools, but guidelines for their use must take into account a careful assessment of the risk.”
Shocking someone with 50,000 volts of electricity is neither harmless nor painless, and should not be the first resort when officers are not threatened with deadly force and can protect themselves by other means, such as a tactical retreat to await backup.
Okay, so tasers should not be first resort. And we know the Chronicle doesn’t want guns to be the first resort, so I have to conclude that Chris Baker was onto something yesterday when he said the Chronicle would prefer that police officers subdue bad guys by asking them to cooperate, politely of course; and if a bad guy doesn’t cooperate, then officers should protect themselves by tactically retreating.
That sounds very effective and should be quite a boost to police morale.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: When I read that editorial, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Platonic editorial idealists at the Chronicle ever descend from their cushy offices at 801 Texas Avenue to the real world that our undermanned police force deals with every single day.
I’m not one of those law-and-order types who say the police are always right. I do think citizens have to guard their rights diligently against all institutions of government. But for the editorialists to embrace the original Taser policy on the grounds that guns kill people, and then to advocate restrictions on Taser use because the ACLU says Tasers hurt people — one just wonders how in the world they would have police do their jobs.
Maybe we need to extend Laurence Simon’s advice — do away with confronting any lawbreaker in favor of taking surveillance photos of everyone who does anything bad in the city and then sending a crack addict hobo over to their place to burn it down. That would be at least as effective as the Chronicle‘s approach to policing.
